Rescuers are searching for survivors after heavy rains triggered flash floods and landslides on the eastern Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The death toll on Wednesday after three days of torrential rain has risen to more than 100 and dozens more are reported missing.

Several districts in south Sulawesi have felt the brunt of the rains that began to fall on Monday, and health officials in the worst-affected district of Sinjai say they are overwhelmed by the crisis. Rivers running through lowland villages have overflowed and heavy rainfall on higher ground has led to mudslides, burying villagers and cutting off rescue access points.

Some of the affected districts are only accessible by foot, as many unpaved and poorly maintained roads are inundated. Military, police and civilian search-and-rescue teams are digging for survivors using manual tools. Rescue teams have requested extra body bags for the corpses thought to be still trapped in the mud.

"We are overwhelmed with the bodies here," a public health centre official said. "We need help, especially body bags."

Since Tuesday, southern districts have been reporting flash floods and mudslides but assistance has been slow to arrive from the regional capital, Makassar, and from Jakarta, 870 miles away.

The social affairs minister, Bachtiar Chamsah, said on Wednesday that medicines and blankets had been sent to the stricken areas, along with body bags. Telephone lines and mobile phone services have been knocked out by the flooding, hampering rescue efforts.

Further heavy rain is forecast for Sulawesi later this week, and some villagers have begun to salvage what they can and leave the area. Indonesia frequently suffers flash floods and landslides that affect millions of people across the archipelago during the annual monsoon.

Decades of intensive logging have affected vital watershed regions and left vast tracts of land exposed and unable to withstand the pounding of heavy rains.

In January, more than 120 people died in two huge landslides on the main island of Java. An entire village was buried in mud after several days of monsoon rain, and thousands of homes were inundated, sparking criticism by environmentalists that the government was failing to stop timber companies from plundering the island's remaining forests.

Analysts say not all the blame can be pinned on logging, though, as many river valleys have long been prone to seasonal floods.